“Whenever someone involved in the rough and tumble of Washington decides to move on, there is speculation in various quarters about the ‘real reason,’” departing CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell wrote in a memo to employees Wednesday. ”But when I say that it is time for my family, nothing could be more real than that.”

That unsolicited disclaimer in and of itself piques the curiosity of Beltway reporters who know that there’s usually layers of subtext behind a personnel shuffle in this administration.

Many resignations and appointments have been about President Obama finding a thank-you spot for those who have done campaign time or otherwise helped propel his terms in office. This is especially evident over at the State Department, where Obama’s traveling press secretary during the 2012 campaign, Jen Psaki, is now the department’s spokeswoman despite no foreign policy experience; where Obama’s Jewish outreach director in 2008 and fundraiser Daniel B. Shapiro was named ambassador to Israel in 2011; where Ira Forman, a longtime Dem operative and Obama’s Jewish outreach director for his 2012 campaign, just received a special envoy post; and where Democratic political player Joe Torsella received an ambassador title and the task of managing the U.S. pocketbook at the United Nations despite no State Department experience.

Other personnel shifts have been about drawing loyalists closer to his side. When UN Ambassador Susan Rice faced a rocky road with the Senate after her nomination to be secretary of State, speculation began that her withdrawal from the nod would be rewarded with an appointment as national security advisor.

Indeed, current NSA Tom Donilon told reporters at the China summit in Palm Springs last weekend that the conversation with Obama “with respect to my retiring from this current job began really at the end of last year.” Rice withdrew her secretary of State nomination in December.

“This has been carefully considered,” Donilon added. “It has been the subject of multiple conversations between me and the President and me and Ambassador Rice, and it was the right time.”

But the Obama shuffles aren’t necessarily all about loyalty as they are about moving the chess pieces into place — whether to give cover to past administration actions or chart a new, likely controversial course in policy.

Morell’s departure from the CIA came as a surprise to many — he and new CIA Director John Brennan are friends from years of service together at Langley — but the news quickly got pulled by the undertow of the news cycle, including scandals and Thursday’s announcement on the Syria red line.

Brennan, like Morell, has a lengthy history at the CIA, where he was once station chief in Riyadh and became deputy director in March 2001. He was the first director at the National Counterterrorism Center in the office created by George W. Bush but left a year later for the private sector. As soon as Obama was elected, the new president tried to move Brennan into the director’s office at the CIA, but when his nomination ran into headwinds Obama instead appointed him counterterrorism adviser to avert a Senate confirmation fight.

Brennan donated to Obama’s first campaign, but his connection to the then-senator goes beyond money.

In March 2008, Brennan was president and CEO of The Analysis Corp., which was accused of snooping into the passport files of Hillary Clinton and John McCain while under contract with the State Department; lower-level employees were fired or disciplined. At the time Brennan was already an adviser on Obama’s campaign, and the candidate reacted with public indignation to his passport file reportedly being accessed as well. “And when you have not just one but a series of attempts to tap into people’s personal records, that’s a problem not just for me but for how our government is functioning,” Obama said.

As an administration adviser Brennan was still campaigning, delivering an April 30, 2012, address on Obama’s counterterrorism strategy that laid out the groundwork for the campaign’s foreign policy narrative: “…If the decade before 9/11 was the time of al-Qaeda’s rise, and the decade after 9/11 was the time of its decline, then I believe this decade will be the one that sees its demise,” he said, crediting in large part “the comprehensive counterterrorism strategy being directed by President Obama.”

In May 2012, CIA officials signed off on the Associated Press’ now-infamous scoop about the agency’s thwarting of an al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula plot to use a second-generation underwear bomb to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner around the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death. That undermined the campaign narrative that al-Qaeda was “on the run” and ultimately led to the Justice Department seizing scores of AP phone records. The CIA director in charge at the time of the approval of the AP story, David Petraeus, was forced to resign two days after Obama’s re-election when his extramarital affair was revealed.

With the Senate successfully pushing Rice to the side and lawmakers torn for a while over controversy surrounding the nomination of Chuck Hagel as defense secretary, Brennan’s nomination slipped through the Senate 63-34.

Morell, on the other hand, has been a career CIA officer dedicated to the agency mission, not any one political leader.

He was, though, integral to George W. Bush’s anti-terrorism mission, delivering the daily intelligence briefing to the president and assisting CIA Director George Tenet before continuing to move up the ranks: deputy director at the National Counterterrorism Center, associate deputy director of the CIA from 2006 until 2008, head of the Directorate of Intelligence, then deputy director in May 2010. When Leon Panetta was pulled over to the Pentagon in July 2011, Morell filled in as acting director for almost two months. When Petraeus got the boot, Morell took the reins again until Obama was able to move Brennan through.

“When I was confirmed as CIA Director, one of the things that I was most looking forward to upon my return to the Agency was the opportunity to work side-by-side once again with Michael Morell,” Brennan said in the Wednesday note to employees. “…As much as I would selfishly like to keep Michael right where he is for as long as possible, he has decided to retire to spend more time with his family and to pursue other professional opportunities.”

The Amateur's appointment of that East Wing bimbo is a disgrace, to the CIA, to American intelligence community, to the nation. It's difficult to calculate how much more thoughtless, mistaken, dishonest, and dangerous this bunch of cretins in the WH can get. But there are 3 more years to find out!

Brennan is murderous vermin scum...Lt Quarles Harris, Jr. (not a rank-real name: google it) was murdered after obtaining passport information of Dear Leader, but his female accomplice (also a Brennan employee) has never been identified. "Fired or disciplined", huh? Yep, Harris was "disciplined" alright! Harris was killed in broad daylight, in his car in front of a church...but just like every other crime this administration has committed "nobody knows nothing."

Morrell was reassigned to keep him close to Dear Leader and keep his mouth shut about Benghazi. Every one of these bastards deserves federal prison at the least.

A driven high-level govt. career man with 3 college-age kids wants more family time? Is he going to drop into their dorm or frat house and play beer pong? Maybe he looks forward to settling in all comfy with his team blanket and cap at the big homecoming game? Okay, if you say this is quite believable, please contact me about a piece of land near Colorado Springs that I would like to unload in the next 3 hours.

Interesting, but written in an unnecessarily complex and obtuse manner so as to detract from full understanding. I usually share such info with friends, but could not, in good conscience, subject them the heavy lifting of connecting all the dots. Perhaps the Byzantine and unethical machinations of the O administrations cannot be described in a straightforward manner.

It doesn’t matter how much cover-up O engages in the truth will come out eventually. One scandal you might be able to cover-up, but not three plus and counting.

It’s unlikely O will be impeached. But scandalmania is going to drag on into next year’s midterms and even low-information voters will pick-up on it. The dems will sustain such horrendous loses some of them (those former members of Congress) might even turn on the Chosen One. In any case, O’s megalomaniacal dream of remaking this country into a socialist paradise will be a bust as the new Congress starts undoing his radical agenda. It’s even possible a majority of Americans might start looking at O as trouble personified for even trying.

The bottom line is that O’s criminal cover-up and opposition research efforts will leave him intact, but it will irradiate his administration into a toxic slag heap.

Well, here's another subtext amid the blah blah: chickenshit 'loyal opposition' drops ball again, waffles in general direction of kicked can -- without being specific, naturally.

Really, there are only two dots: this will continue; until it stops or is stopped.

Meanwhile, almost half of congress is grandstanding on one of the fifteen subcommittees investigating Benghazi et al., all waiting for the next photo op. But nothing happens, except bwana's going on safari and M'belle will soon be off to Martha's Vineyard, or Vail if the weather's iffy.

Some where on this computer I still have a boilerplate State of Alaska Memorandum the body of which says, "For personal reasons I am compelled to submit my resignation from State service effective mm/dd/yy.

You print one of those up with the appropriate to and from, walk into somebody's office, and say, "you do it or we will." This is a courtesy you offer the high-ranking so they can go home and tell their family and friends anything but the truth. I know if I'd seen an appointee's name on an opponent or the other party's contributer list, they'd have gotten that visit and that memo. Unfortunately, GWB didn't work that way.

I gotta think it really isn't smart to mess with the spooks, but Democrats did it in the '70s and seemingly got away with it. I've often recounted here the sign I once had over my desk that said, "Remember, when the enemy is in range, so are you." The Soros Junta/OFA has had a good run with all that NSA data, but they might remember that other people can get it and use it too, and they've got to be making one Helluva lot of enemies inside these organizations. I know the majority of the 'crats are Democrats and even those that aren't are afraid of Democrats, but career 'crats get really, really resentful of being told what to do and expecially of being over-ridden by political appointees with no subject mater skills.

Obama is quietly building an organization of loyalists ... he has the money (ours); the power (in the executive) and the bodies to accomplish all the dreams of Ayers' ilk .... ... and OFA is getting bigger and more powerful and intimidating every day.

It seems likely that Morell confirmed to the House Intelligence Panel the supposition that Hillary wanted the story on Benghazi changed. Petreaus did as he was ordered, and then fired and humiliated to prevent further complications for 0. Morell is, apparently, being given the opportunity to get out of Dodge more or less whole, and, as the saying goes, move on in his professional life. It will be interesting to see whether he goes to academia, a think tank, or founds his own mercenary operation.